Tennis (Photographers') Elbow

drounding

drounding

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I know this has been posted a few years ago but hadn't seen anything more recent than 2010.

I've got tennis elbow in my left arm which I'm pretty sure is due to me supporting and zooming my 70-200 f2.8 lens on my 70D with the grip on. My elbow and arm is quite tender and difficult to extend or twist without pain. The combination is quite heavy, although not unreasonably so, and I could usually manage it for a whole day with a decent neck strap but over the last few weeks has got progressively worse.

I'm going to start and try using my monopod to take the weight off it as well as wear a support when using the camera.

Does anyone else suffer from this and have any advice?
 
I had it in my right arm a couple of years ago, but a family friend is an osteopath so had a course of treatment and been fine since, although I have also moved over to using lighter weight prime lenses more often throughout a days shooting and limiting 70-200 time to only when really needed, which I have no doubt has helped prevent a reoccurrence. I would certainly say anything you can do to take the strain off the area will help, so monopod and a support probably won't make things any worse.
 
First off, have you been medically told you have Tennis Elbow? If not, your best going to the doctors to have it confirmed.

I have had bursitis to my left elbow and this has been treated with draining and antibiotics. Usually with any soft tissue injuries the most common thing to do is rest the elbow and stop doing whats causing the pain, you will find it will then get better. Also, with these type of injurues they may try Cortisone injections, they have never worked for me ,but other family members swear by them.

I have arthritis throughout my body and part of the treatment I have had is Decompression Subacromial operations to both shoulders. With my left shoulder I am suffering with nerve damage to arm which has now started travelling to my hand and fingers. This was caused by the nerve block I had to relive the post op pain. I have recently been seen by the Shoulder Specialist and I have been referred to the Nerve Diagnostic Centre to investigate nerve problem, they wanted to wait two years for recovery from the operation to see if it would settle by itself.

To enable me to continue with my newish hobby of photography I have since ditched my DSLR and I moved over to Fuji earlier this year, I now have a XT1 for the lightness. I want to continue my hobby so when going out I travel as light as possible, which means a lighter bag, lenses, I never carry more than two etc................ and I have come to the conclusion that I can only use my heavy lenses at home using a tripod or monopod, this is fine with me as I have a lot of birds in the garden as I back onto woodland. I have adjusted this way as I can then manage the pain. I use my camera mainly one handed now when out with the 18-55mm lens.

A little off topic, but I thought I would share how I manage now with photography.
 
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drounding said:
I know this has been posted a few years ago but hadn't seen anything more recent than 2010.

I've got tennis elbow in my left arm which I'm pretty sure is due to me supporting and zooming my 70-200 f2.8 lens on my 70D with the grip on. My elbow and arm is quite tender and difficult to extend or twist without pain. The combination is quite heavy, although not unreasonably so, and I could usually manage it for a whole day with a decent neck strap but over the last few weeks has got progressively worse.

I'm going to start and try using my monopod to take the weight off it as well as wear a support when using the camera.

Does anyone else suffer from this and have any advice?
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Used to suffer, also from exacerbation of the arthritis in my right thumb. A monopod was the solution. You don't even always have to extend it. Collapsed it still provides an excellent chunky handle which for longer use can have the foot tucked across your trouser belt. Or belt mounted pod foot holster if you're posh :)
 
I'll be giving the monopod a go this weekend and see how it goes. I always found the monopod a bit difficult to both support and point in the right direction (in the vertical plane). I'm going to try with a loose ball head on top and see if that can give me the best of both worlds. Thanks for the replies.
 
drounding said:
I'll be giving the monopod a go this weekend and see how it goes. I always found the monopod a bit difficult to both support and point in the right direction (in the vertical plane). I'm going to try with a loose ball head on top and see if that can give me the best of both worlds. Thanks for the replies.
Click to expand...
I have the same annoying problem with monopods and camera orientation. I realised most the time I wanted the camera in landscape orientation pointing not far off straight ahead. It was very annoying when it was not quite perpendicular to the 'pod and I wanted it to be exact.

So I tried dumping the head mounting the camera straight on the 'pod. That meant I had to tilt the pod a bit to get the not quite straight shots. No problem. And extremely nice and handy that the stick was now an exact directional reference.

Now shots far off straight ahead were annoying, because I lost the 'pod foot support. And portrait orientation was really annoying. I had to hold the 'pod sticking out sideways or put a head on it. But the delight of having the stick as an exact orientation reference, and never having to bother with adjusting the head, far outweighed the inconvenience of those rarer annoyances.

So now I always use the 'pod headless. I sometimes carry a ball head in a pocket just in case. It's rarely used. Try using a headless monopod. You may find it a surprisingly good compromise.
 
I'll give it a go with and without the head and see what works best.
 
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